My Family Garden Quilt

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Well I'm planning my garden, and this year I'm ahead of the game. Last year it all happened so quickly that I was lucky to get anything out of it. The greatest harvest thought was this concept of Vanishing Feast. How lucky am I?! In these posts at my other blog, Magic Hat Stories (MHS), An Heirloom Garden, A Family Quilt by Another Name, Part 1, Part 2, I look at the concept of heirloom gardening, and put it in the context of a family quilt. This year I fully intend to use a portion of my garden as a family garden quilt.

In this post at MHS, My Heirloom Garden Follows the Journey of My Family, I use 3 heirloom varities of vegetables to trace my family's journey from Italy, to Philadelphia, PA, and eventually to southern New Jersey. While I did grow all three varities, they were not set up as a quilt. As I mentioned above, last year was rushed experience.

I will be using the same 3 varities I wrote about in the post mentioned in the paragraph above. These are Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Peppers, Fish Peppers and Rutger's tomatoes. This year I will be adding Belmonte Tomatoes, which originated in Calabria area of Italy, where my Dad's family is from. The Jimmy Nardello's are from Basilicata, Italy where my Mom's family is from. The story of the Fish Peppers goes that it originated with African-American slaves, and was used in the Baltimore/Philadlephia area to flavor seafood chowders. Both sets of my grandparents settled in Philadelphia, and the Fish peper will honor that fact my garden quilt.

Rutgers and Boxcar Willie tomatoes will complete the quilt. They represent New Jersery where my dad moved our family in the 1960's. This is where my dad taught me and my brothers about organic gardening.  I'll use some flowers and herbs to represent my mom to color and texture. And yes, this will be a square shape. I plan on shooting video and still photos as part of the documentry.

I will share the photo and the progress on this blog.

Cheers!